kate mellina / dave christopher

VOTE Window Exhibit

Last fall – when pre-election angst and anger were at their peak – Dave and I contacted over two dozen Philadelphia artists, writers and performers, and asked them to pose for our windows holding upbeat signs with words like create, collaborate, envision and, yes, VOTE….

Twenty-eight smiling artists lit up our South Philadelphia windows last October to remind us that we really do have more in common than not.

As you may recall, participants included everyone from singer Bobby Rydell and comedian Jennifer Childs, to jazz pianist Alfie Pollitt and sculptor Miguel Antonio Horn.

But there was one window, front and center, that was reserved for my earliest role model.

IN PHILADELPHIA, NEARLY EVERYONE READS….

Like today, the late 1960s were a confusing and complex time to be a teenager and, three days a week, I’d rush home from high school, tear open the Philadelphia Bulletin, and read Claude Lewis’ column.

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It’s been two weeks since the presidential election, and we’d like to thank the more than two dozen artists, writers, and performers who offered words of pre-election encouragement from our South Philadelphia windows….

Click here to learn about the 28 inspiring Philadelphia artists who spent the pre-election month smiling from our windows.

…and the hundreds more warm-hearted souls who let us photograph them for our blog….

Click here to scroll backwards through all 11 of our pre-election posts, starting with this one.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN….

We dreamed up our non-partisan photo project this summer, during a depressing campaign week that painted America as a failed experiment — with a candidate who somehow made it okay to overlook insults against minorities, women, the disabled, the armed forces, prisoners of war, our allies – seemingly against basic human kindness itself.

And we did our best to put aside our own political leanings to remind people (including ourselves) of the goodness that built our country and the goodness we can still create together.

…AND MOVING FORWARD

But healing is largely missing from the holiday menu this year: No one could have predicted that the candidate with almost three million more votes would be declared the loser, and that the Ku Klux Klan would be planning a public victory parade – or that the election results would be hailed with racist graffiti and taunts against children and adults in cities all around America, including our own.

This Thanksgiving will be an especially hard one, with families split along ideological lines and feelings so raw.

So where do we start? There’s only one clear path….

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

And so this Thanksgiving – when radio stations all over the country traditionally play “Alice’s Restaurant”, that rambling folk ballad – what better musician to quote than self-described “folkslinger” Arlo Guthrie, in a fun-but-true riff built off a comment by fellow musician Pete Seeger:

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Well, it’s come down to this….and there’s no do-overs after Election Day….

Corny perhaps, but indubitably true: Click here to learn more about these smiling faces in our South Philly windows – and about the hundreds more big-hearted Philadelphians we’ve photographed for our blog this month.

And, yeah, it’s easy to say that both major candidates are flawed, and you don’t want to vote for either of them. But their agendas are polar opposites, and one of them will be elected this week.

And you – and all the other smiling faces on our blog – will be living with the consequences for years to come.

Nightline co-anchor Dan Harris and segment producers Jasmine Brown (the lead producer that day) and Ignacio Torres were in town to gauge the pre-election stress level in our hotly contested swing state. (Hint: Think high – very high.)

They also offered relief in the form of a daringly co-ed (i.e., mixed Democrat and Republican) meditation session.

In between, they talked to us about our upbeat South Philadelphia window display….

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Over the past several posts, we’ve told you about many of the 28 artists, writers, musicians and performers who appear in our South Philadelphia window display. (And, yes, if you’re not familiar with our pre-election, anti-angst campaign, you can read about it here.)

Today, we’ll tell you about the remaining 8 artists overlooking South Philadelphia’s popular “singing fountain”….

The view on our second and third floors at East Passyunk Avenue and Tasker Street….